I'm far from an expert on Dawn of War, but since no one else is answering, here goes...
For a new player, the Space Marines are probably the easiest to learn. They don't have any unique game mechanics to master (like the Necrons' power-but-no-requisition or the Orks' WAAAGH!), and they don't depend as much on micromanaged special abilities and carefully balanced unit mixtures (like the Eldar or Imperial Guard).
Try the following (approximate) order:
- Queue a couple of Scout Troopers and a Servitor. As soon as the Scout Troopers are done, send them to start capturing strategic points. Queue up a couple of strategic points each to keep them busy.
- Set one Servitor to work on a Chapel-Barracks and the other on a Power Plant. Send whichever one is available to build Listening Posts once your scouts have finished capturing strategic points. A listening post costs 100 req, but once it's complete, you immediately gain 50 req, so it's cheaper than it appears, and they're critical in the long term for a good economy.
- Set your Chapel-Barracks to build a squad of Space Marines and the Force Commander. Attach the commander to the space marine squad. Reinforce the squad. Build a second squad if resources permit.
- Use your space marines + commander to harass the enemy or defend your base. Use your scouts to de-capture any strategic points that they've left undefended.
- Next, it's time to advance to the next tier: upgrade your Stronghold to a Monastery, and build an Armory.
- Now the fun starts. Research Heavy Weapon Increase at the armoury, and outfit all of your space marine squads with the appropriate weaponry: plasma guns for heavy infantry opponents like Necrons and Space Marines, heavy bolters for infantry like Eldar, and missile launchers for buildings and vehicles.
- Build Gray Knights and attach the Chaplain for an easy quick-hitting melee unit.
- To keep the gameplay even simpler, you can postpone building the Machine Cult and focus on the Sacred Artifact instead. Using one exclusively probably isn't an optimal strategy, but it lets you stay focused on infantry instead of having to juggle vehicles as well.
RelicWiki has more information.
The AI in Dawn of War is pretty shocking at the best of times and frequently gets stuck at the first tech level spamming small weak units in an attempt to complete a "tech 1 rush". Typically you will find if you can hold off the initial wave the rest of the game will be a piece of cake seeing as you will have vehicles and they will still only have infantry.
My main point of advice would be to use lots of little squads instead of upgrading one squad (i.e. I would rather have 3 different marine squads of 4 men as apposed to 1 big squad of 10). This means you can engage multiple targets at once and if someone gets drawn into melee when you didn't really want them to you have another couple of squads to help clear the trouble).
As for how to hold off this initial wave it depends on which army you are playing as and which you are fighting. For any army I would definitely say make sure you build a command unit as your first or second attacking unit seeing as the extra HP will definaiely give you a bit more thinking time (this is especially true of necrons seeing as the necron lord is the best unit you have at your disposal) ... from here its a matter of who you are fighting and knowing how they will rush you.
Marines / Choas - Will usually play a solid game with decent AI - harass you a little at the start with marine squads but continue to push through tech levels so you will need to keep up with them technologywise. With choas be careful of cultist squads because they have a tendency to engage multiple squads in close combat at once and leave them prone to fire from another unit.
Elder - they will typically throw guardian squad after guardian squad at you and then throw the occasional farseer whenever they have enough spare rec (strategy = get heavy bolters out asap - or whatever your armies equivalent is).
Orks - Similar to elder, will begin by throwing squad after squad at you but with the added danger of a big mek. This guy can be a pain in the ass because of his teleport ability which will get him to you sooner. (Strategy = you will definitely need a command unit to deal with an ork rush). If orks manage to get to get to tech 2 they are likely to start throwing wartraks at you, counter these with vehicles because their rockets will constantly knock your regular troops over.
Imperial Guard - Again similar to elder, will throw lots of little units at you as well as the command squad which can be a pain because its quickly regenerates powerful units. Heavy bolters (or similar) are the way forward again.
Necrons - On big maps these guys will hardly have the chance to rush you because they are so slow, but you will need to be careful of the necron lord seeing as his teleport power recharges very quick and he can get to your base super fast because of it. Engage this guy with a command unit and have everything else you have shot at him. Probably best to keep his body surrounded as well because when they rebuild him it will revive in the same place it was last killed.
Tau - Watch out for the krut rush, these can be nasty especially if they have feral leap. Lots of separate units will help with this one so that all squads are not simultaneously having to engage one squad.
I didn't ever really play that much Soulstorm so I can't really say more about sisters / dark elder.
Best Answer
You can use the following mod: Increase Fog Distance and Sky radius*.
To install it:
.zip
file.Follow the included instructions to place the mod in the correct folder. In my case, I had to copy the 'Data' folder to:
This is what it looks like with the mod installed:
* I have no affiliation to this mod or the team surrounding it.